


my love's too big for you, my love

by streetlightsky



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Minor Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3821575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetlightsky/pseuds/streetlightsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watched his silhouette disappear down the hallway, bit her lower lip in hopelessness, and thought, <i>not again</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my love's too big for you, my love

**Author's Note:**

> So, first off, I kind of made this [thing](http://streetlightsky.tumblr.com). I've been lurking at the community on Tumblr for a long while now and finally told myself to get over my insecurities because hey, talking to people about fic might actually help my writing. So, I mean, if you'll have me, I'll be around. :)
> 
> Now, moving on... For the past couple of months, I've been stuck in a rut where I literally hate everything I write. I'm in the middle of a big piece and decided to do small things to try and help the problem, but I'm not sure it's working to the effect I imagined. I honestly wasn't even going to post this, but had too many headcanons for the verse that I had to get something down and out of the way. So, hope this isn't as terrible as I think it is!
> 
> As always, characters and general universe don't belong to me. Errors, grammatical or factual, intended or not, do belong to me. Rated for mentions of sex.

The first time Jemma saw him, she thought nothing of it. Well, nothing out of the ordinary. She did have a pulse, after all, and there was no denying the way he epitomized tall, dark, and handsome—the bone structure, arm veins, enigmatic expression distinguishing him above the rest.

Her eyes scrunched slightly at the sight and she swore familiarity. As if he was one of her theoretical science projects come to life, now standing in three-dimensional form a few feet away from her. But that was impossible because Sci-Tech and Ops never mixed and his distinct American accent all but ruled out some chance encounter back home in Ashburton. Still, Jemma felt like she knew him from somewhere.

Fitz snapped and she startled back to reality only to see ten pairs of eyes—including his—looking at her with intent or amusement. Their gazes met for a dazzling moment and she couldn’t tell whether his blank expression meant boredom or irritation. Field agents were trained for action, not orientations and transitional work. Jemma wondered how badly one had to do to pass assessments but never amount to anything.

At night, sleeping for the first time out of her worn dorm room at the Academy, her mind succumbed to a dream she had been sporadically having for the last year or so: Colin, his office, her bare legs, and the fading effect of her hearing. When she woke, everything made so much more sense.

Jemma didn’t know that field agent—Ward, she believed he introduced himself as—anymore than his curt introduction gave away. What she did know was that she had a definitive type that tended to resurface at the most inopportune moments.

Of course, upon that realization, she set about to deter the situation: getting to know her flatmates more personally, mingling with all types of agents, engaging in anything and everything she could as a lowly Level 2 who chose to bypass the Sandbox for a less lucrative position at the House in hopes of branching out and seeing more than just the insides of a lab.

But then she dreamt that scene again and halfway through the sequence of events, Colin morphed into tall, dark, and handsome dressed in full tactical gear and urging a different kind of stringency, leaving her stunned rather than mortified.

This was not a good sign. Jemma did her breathing exercises, avoided him even more than usual, and prayed that she possessed the power to will things away. But when he appeared the way he did in her subconscious—black clothing, Kevlar vest, gun holsters and all—Jemma could only avert her attention to the floor tiles for so long.

She watched his silhouette disappear down the hallway, bit her lower lip in hopelessness, and thought, _not again_.

Once was more than enough times Jemma was willing to experience heartache and humiliation. She still had not recovered from the horrific incident as evidenced by the reoccurring nightmare—even if they were taking a slightly new form as of late.

Fitz called it her Traumatic Crush and though she winced at the term, it wasn’t wrong. As a teenager at the top of her much older class, feelings of infallibleness had been rather inevitable so much that Jemma had gone against every warning and hesitation to chase down the one man aside from Fitz she deemed worth her attention and interest.

Petra had let her borrow anything she wanted from her roommate’s opulent closet. It had been the first time Jemma wore anything remotely revealing, which made her all the more nervous. Tugging at the hemline of the pleated skirt, she knocked on his door and smiled when he invited her in.

She wasn’t sure what to do or say. She had no plan of attack, no script to read off of. Jemma had zero knowledge how these things worked and was more than a little petrified of looking like an incompetent fool when her usual chattiness and confidence always seemed to vanish around him.

The inadvertent pattern turned out to be an unexpected boon, saving her from the unforeseen amount of trouble and shame she imprudently had not taken into account beyond her initial reservations.

“Jemma, I know why you’re here.”

She gulped at the loaded sentence, not sure which way the conversation was heading.

“I’m—”

“Does Professor Vaughn still quiz you guys on the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook?” he asked. Jemma stopped and nodded numbly at the peculiar question. “And I’m sure someone as bright as you memorized it, am I right?” Some of the finer details were a little rusty, but she couldn’t disagree. “Do you remember Section 214?”

Acceding, her brain racked back to the couple of hours she spent remembering that darn guide. The 100s listed the organization’s foundation, mission, and duties. 200s then went on explaining the different agent classifications, hierarchical ranking, and frater—

 _Oh_.

Jemma pressed her lips together as she felt the flush creep up her neck. She didn’t dare look at his physical form, but instead metaphorically stared at him through his nameplate on the desk. Colin Shepherd, PhD. Lab Coordinator.

He was twenty-five and she was nineteen. He was an official S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and she was about to graduate and become one. He leaned against the windowsill with crossed arms while she sat in a borrowed outfit with a bowed head wondering what she was thinking in coming here.

“214”—her voice was unbearably quiet—“explicitly states S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fraternization policy, ranging from its severe discouragement, possible consequences if or when inappropriately violated, or the extensive procedure of permitting such relations within the organization.”

She swallowed and blinked back tears, stinging her eyes shut before they fell without permission. She wanted nothing more than to leave, to give Petra back her skirt, and to never feel so sick and unprepared than she did at the moment.

“You know the rules, Jemma. They were made for a reason,” he told her. “Rules aren’t meant to be broken. Not in an organization like this. Not when lives are at stake.”

In her rightful mind, she would scoff. Professors weren’t oblivious to the socializing behavior between students, having been in that position once themselves. Jemma could also confidently state that lives were not in any imminent peril considering their confined line of work.

But the protests had died her in throat when she knew she couldn’t ever argue with authority. Not on this particular subject. Not when she was about to graduate. Not with Colin, who she still had the utmost respect for. Fitz had sworn in Scottish on her behalf and all but called him the bastard who led her on just to shut her down. But in the end, Jemma could only agree with the decision.

Rules were supposed to be followed.

So whatever she was feeling for Ward, it was not going to amount to anything. It couldn’t.

The rest of her, however, didn’t seem to understand the concept. Her desires burgeoned like the fastest growing culture she had ever witnessed. Like an infection eating her up inside that no one could stop.

She was sick; she knew she was. Every little thing he did cluttered her mind and memory until she became a full-blown addict collecting whatever data she could find to satisfy her pathetic and prohibited infatuation.

He was their resident specialist, she found out. His antisocial attitude made it abundantly clear that he’d rather be stationed in Antarctica than here with a bunch of other floating graduates. He seemed to enjoy pancakes for breakfast if Jemma interpreted that facial expression correctly and read often for a field agent.

He also shared a suite with Fitz, Jurgens, and Shapiro, but rarely interacted with them or anyone else unless necessary. She learned this the hard way when she went looking for Fitz once and came face-to-face with Ward’s barren chest, coming out of a fresh shower.

“Oh, sorry!” she squawked. “I, um… Fitz— I didn’t… Well, this is certainly—”

“He left when I came back. Probably down in the lab,” he informed.

“Yes! Well, that sounds... Because he— And you surely…”

He smirked and it was the first relatively entertained expression she had ever seen him wear. He found her silliness amusing.

Her cheeks burned in delight and terror. She didn’t even remember uttering words of thanks or goodbye before scurrying off like a skittish animal.

After that, she steered clear of Fitz’s place and made him come over to her suite instead.

They went round and round in this never-ending cycle: Jemma finding ways to subdue her emotions only for him to make them spring back with rebounding force. She accepted the enabling acts as coincidences the first few times and took it like the professional agent she was.

But then... But then…

It was like he did it on purpose. Something as simple as “Good morning” or “See you around” spun her in a dizzying stupor so much that she could hardly breathe. His appearance outside the labs when he had never once frequented the department before was surely more than just happenstance. And then that dastardly charming smirk of his; it practically confirmed her suspicions, yet somehow left her with more questions than answers.

“I think I’m being taken advantage of,” she told Fitz. Her best friend only mocked Traumatic Crush 2.0 with a petulant response of how her wayward loyalties to science would not be as fruitful as the product of their current project perfecting the D.W.A.R.F.s.

Jemma couldn’t blame Fitz for his disapproval and aversion to the issue. But honestly, he should have been at least a little more vigilant for the sake of her sanity, and safety for that matter. Especially when she was grabbed by the arm, shoved inside the deserted utility room, and pushed against the locked door like a scene ripped right out of her reverie.

For a horrific second, she thought of all the rules and repercussions, but then his warm tongue slid between her lips, deftly removing any doubts from her spellbound mind. She gasped at the smooth friction, the way he was so confident—cocky—in this damning situation.

And she knew, the way she knew the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook and both her dissertations by heart, that this was wrong. But the lips of a man she had been lusting after were currently all over hers and Jemma was not stupid enough to pass up an opportunity like this.

He had her breathing hard within seconds, senselessly desperate for his everything, and bursting with all the feelings she tried to bury. It was pathetic, really, how her resolve melted under his touch. Slinking fingers grazed the skin underneath her shirt and she moaned at the wonder of it all.

She reluctantly pulled back and pressed a hand against his firm chest when she could no longer take it. The deprivation of oxygen ironically brought her back to reality and reminded her just what she had gotten herself into—the fact that tall, dark, and handsome Grant Ward practically forced himself onto her and that she enjoyed his sweeping gesture and possession.

His ragged breath gave her a splash of satisfaction and she thought even if he left right now, these few minutes would all have been worth it.

“What was that for?”

“Thought I put us both out of our misery.”

He smirked. That bastard.

The revelation, though, was much more alarming than Jemma anticipated. She ducked—looking away with uncertainty now that her body recognized the trapped position it was in with no distraction to occupy her attention. Her muddle thoughts became clear in the wake of his implication. She felt mortified.

“Was it that obvious?”

He chuckled—the _bastard_ —and traced a finger down her neck. “I’m a specialist. It was that obvious.”

Nonplussed, Jemma stood there dumbly and left herself vulnerable. She didn’t understand, didn’t know what she was supposed to do now. Fantasies never subsisted beyond this point when history had clearly expressed its utter disapproval. To insist rationality under current incredulity was something not even her bright mind could produce under pressure.

Her outstretched hand dropped to his abdomen and she fisted his shirt when his knuckles rubbed against her clavicle. The only thing she thought was how she would love nothing more than to see the contents underneath that thin cotton material again.

“So… what happens next?”

He leaned awkwardly against her hold on him to trail a wet path of open-mouthed kisses up her jawline and Jemma barely suppressed her groan. She drew—pulled—him closer and felt the hot weight of his frame pinning her against the door.

Into her ear, he whispered, “I’ve got a few ideas.”

She was sure the whole thing was a vision sequence, some twisted mind trick, or a hallucination from her hours at the lab and subsequent lack of sleep. But when he bit at her bare hip, she jolted awake to the overwhelming sensations he so easily caused with teeth and tongue and the suction his mouth created.

Jemma was a pliant pile of mush under his command, which she didn’t know whether he appreciated or disliked. Really though, what kind of performance was the man expecting after he swooped in on her without any warnings whatsoever.

He finished with gusto and she lied there on the laundry table thinking how she was supposed to justify this when it felt like she broke a thousand rules and loved every minute of doing so. She thought of her S.O. who would have a field day, of Fitz who would also have choice words of censure and caution.

She knew, as they all did, that this was forbidden. This was wrong.

He left with instructions to stagger their respective exits instead of a parting kiss and Jemma shuddered at the voice that minutes ago said the most thrilling things. But instead of departing after the allotted ten minutes, she stayed and listened to the whirs of the washing machines and her mind working overtime to find calm in the perfect storm.

Later, she learned from Shapiro that Ward, hand-selected to join a group of Level 5 agents, had left for some weeklong mission a mere hour after their little rendezvous. She nearly choked on the water and straw tip in her mouth from the laugh she emitted.

She was impressed, really. He was probably on the fast track to bigger ops at the Hub or Triskelion and better to lose control and get any carnal tendencies out of the system while they were still relatively risk-free. It was almost romantic, if Jemma let herself think of it in that pitiful and hopeless way. Which she did because wasn’t that how these things went?

They weren’t anything. They couldn’t and wouldn’t be. Even when he came back eight days later and dragged her through his deserted suite with a tight grip and bruising kiss like he missed her something fierce. Even the five times after that where his dastardly smirk turned into a brazen smile.

Even when he helped her button her blouse after the twelfth time, pressed his lips to her forehead, and told her he would see her at dinner, which he always sat alone for, Jemma refused to believe something would come out of their trysts.

“You can call me Grant, you know,” he said while they stole minutes gathering their wits and getting dressed before he had to leave her room and she went to meet Fitz.

“Okay.”

It was a bad idea, but she went along with it anyway. One little piece of personalization Jemma could surely compartmentalize without eliciting harm or foul. Two, three, six were no big deal either. They were secrets for themselves; they were sealed with a kiss; they made her smile.

Sometimes, instead of ‘welcome back, I’m glad you’re still alive’ sex, she wrapped her arms around him and inhaled in his scent. Or at night when both their flats were fully occupied, they hid in the gym or by the pool and made out like teenagers. Either way, somehow, they made the effort—Jemma doing so wholly unconsciously until she realized just how deep she was in this thing.

It was way more than Traumatic Crush 2.0 at this point.

It was his guiltless fingerprints covering her body, the smell of their musk stained to her pillow, the electric glances at each other and secret smiles. It was a twisted vine winding around her heart with wild and powerful intent that Jemma knew she should rid herself of but refused to part with.

He wormed his way in and she practically left the door open. She fell far and fast with nothing to ease the landing except for the embedded image of that one time he looked back at her in his gear with reassurance and contentment before leaving for an op.

He was brave and admirable. He risked his life for the good of the organization. And Jemma? Well, she risked his life too. She squeezed his hand in secret, told him to come home safely, and then wondered if he thought of her when he was away as much as she thought about him.

She was out of her mind; she was doomed for destruction; she was wretched and deplorable.

She was falling in love with him.

Jemma was almost twenty-one and had been perfectly fine ignoring the concept in favor of facts of life rooted in concrete science until now when it turned her life inside-out in ways she could never have imagined. This terrifying, wonderful, strange, addicting sensation took over almost without permission—and definitely without remorse—so much that someone as bright as her was rendered helpless and hopeless under its unrelenting force.

Which made the whole situation all the more devastating to confront while facing their commanding officer and his incensed expression upon hearing that two of his most promising agents had flagrantly violated the rules.

Jemma stared down at her lap as she was chastised. She flinched at the words _rules_ and _broken_ and _lives_. And then she was transported back in time—hearing the same lecture in simpler sentences and a milder tone.

But just because she had heard the speech before didn’t make it any easier the second time. She wasn’t somehow prepared or immune. Jemma couldn’t guard against the tidal wave of shame crashing down on her. She was still heartbroken. Knowing that she took it too far, that she had a chance to stop it but couldn’t bring herself to, that her feelings were received rather than rejected made the admonition far worse than anything she could’ve prepared for.

It hurt like hell—the pain worse than tender tugs on her heartstrings. The vines that once kept her together slowly came undone and left her with a void filled by agony in this fatal free fall.

Jemma closed her eyes as a repentant tear leaked down her cheek. If she had the good sense to not make the same mistake twice by chasing after someone unobtainable, she wouldn’t be in this position right now. She wouldn’t have to experience ten times the heartbreak.

They were dismissed with a stern ultimatum and Jemma solemnly followed Grant out while trying to swipe away any physical remnants of her visible distress.

“Well…” Her voice croaked badly. She took a shuddery breath, grasped at any semblance of composure, and tried again. “I suppose that… um, we’ll go ahead and… report the infraction.”

He was close by, dangerously so, but Jemma avoided his gaze with all her might. She couldn’t bear to look at him now, to see the face she had always appreciated in this state of ruin. She didn’t want to watch the one extraordinary thing she had found since partnering up with Fitz dissipate right in front of her eyes. Jemma could only hope that he would make this easy.

She should have known it wasn’t in his nature to do so.

“Or we can just make it official.” His tone was absurdly calm, almost nonchalant. And that combined with those unfathomable words dumbfounded Jemma into a mystified daze.

“What?”

“We have to file paperwork either way,” he said with a shrug. _A shrug!_

Her head spun frantically trying to decipher what he was suggesting, his all too casual manner—so much that she lost balance in the abrupt shift. Jemma didn’t know what to think when a couple of minutes ago she had swallowed back sobs of sorrow and humiliation believing that this was the end for them.

He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he did. They weren’t like that. He was—

He was right there. Warm hands steadied her tipping form and intent eyes reflected the same kind of deep knowing Jemma pictured when she let gravity work alone for the moments it could. The fear of descent never lasted long when she knew what was waiting at the bottom.

“You would do that?”

He shook her shoulders and smirked. It was so easy for him. While Jemma felt burdened by the consequences, he appeared liberated. Like he relished in the opportunity to stand out, to deviate from the norm. She didn’t understand it.

“What’s the worse that could happen?” he remarked. She could think of a couple ideas. “If we document it, then they’ve got nothing to say. And we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?”

His expression softened—still serious, but in a way that differed from the stoic man that strode down hallways with purpose. Jemma could barely breathe when he looked at her like that. When it felt like she was more than just a girl or a genius. When she got that overwhelming sense that she was the only one receiving such sentiments from him.

“Rules are meant to be broken.”

In any other circumstance, she refuted that claim. She stood behind the well-regulated boundaries of ethics and authority—all too willing to fall in line and fulfill her anointed duties.

But then he kissed her, out in the open, consequences be damned. He swept her away, nauseated her senses, and shrunk the world down to the square feet they occupied together. And with him, Jemma didn’t detest the spotlight. She just wished that others wouldn’t think it too bright and try to diminish the glow.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, okay?”

She nodded dumbly and buried her face into his chest to muffle her meek, “Okay.”

It was not all okay, though. As expected, she got a strong earful from her disappointed S.O. and then a displeased one from Fitz—each reminding her rules, rules, rules. The delight she felt holding Grant’s hand down to the lab lasted two whole floors until agents she didn’t even know gave them reproachful glances.

The rules hurt; the rules were not on their side. When she saw the ugly asterisk denoting her relationship with Grant on her file, she frowned in frustration. She detested how it looked, how it made her feel. Like she had done something horribly irreversible and detrimental to her career and reputation when in fact she just fell for someone that miraculously reciprocated her feelings.

Grant didn’t get it, but he tried. He told her not to think of it that way, that they were better together, that he had her. And though she didn’t completely believe in the words, she believed in him.

So she learned to love that asterisk as much as she loved him. The minute mark became a proud symbol of their relationship and reminded her all the days and weeks and months he was gone the rewards that came from risks. She cherished the little symbol the way she adored him. And it became a part of her—an ingrained, natural, defining feature of the person she was.

The effects of her unwavering devotion eventually settled with such deep permanence that she came to disregard the note, especially when she had the real deal wrapped around her sleeping form most nights in their homey flat. Jemma knew those kind of emotions didn’t ever really disappear or fade the way she saw the difference she and Fitz made within S.H.I.E.L.D.

They could never take that away. Nothing could mute or eradicate what and how she felt. Even when it was all said and done, when they were seemingly through and the request for the asterisk’s removal was approved, everything that was him still somehow lingered inside of her.


End file.
